This story is a test of intelligence, and if you believe it, you've just flunked the test.

If you look up the text of the proposed Directive, you'll see that it concerns worker safety. You can argue if décolleté sunburn is a problem for barmaids or not, but bare-chested builders get sunburned. But that's not the story.

Walk onto a building site and everyone wears - or should wear - a helmet and steel-toed shoes - paid for by the boss. When the Optical Radiation Directive comes into force the boss also has to pay for a solution for sunburn on sunny days. He can choose to keep his workers safe by giving them the day off (fat chance) or ... The logical solution to comply with the Directive seems to me : give everybody enough heavy duty sun tan lotion, and let the boss see to it that everybody lathers up - just as he is now responsible for helmets, shoes, ...

There is a nasty word hiding in the bushes - skin cancer.

So this story is really about who pays for the care of skin cancer patients. The aim of the Directive is to make bosses pay during employment of workers to prevent them getting skin cancer. The alternative is for everyone else to pay taxes for sick leave and care of workers or former workers who develop skin cancer.

Of course, the easiest way for the bosses to ensure that they don't pay is to get everyone to believe some silly story. And if they're lucky the story has sex in it, so it spreads like wildfire.

So, if the barmaid has a problem, the bartender has to pay for sun tan lotion. There will be no shortage of volunteers to help apply the lotion. As you say, all truth in the long run is only common sense clarified.